Hi Frank!
I concur with several of my listmates: bake your bread at a higher
temperature to get a brown and crispy crust. For a basic bread--one made
with yeast, water, flour and salt--you can bake at 450 to 500F, get a great
oven spring and a wonderful, brown and crispy crust. Of course, you'll
need to reduce the baking time by 5-10 minutes of so. Steam and misting
the loaf will help you achieve this also, but stop misting and make sure
all of the water in the pan at the bottom of your oven has evaporated after
the first 10 minutes of baking. When your oven is too wet for too long,
you won't get either that brown color or a crispy outside.
Another thing that helps my crusts is starting the dough with an overnight
biga or poolish. A cup of water, 1/4 tsp. yeast and 2 cups of flour, stir
it up in a large container, cover, and let it work overnight. When you're
ready to make the dough the next day, add another cup of water, 1 tsp.
yeast, flour and a Tbsp. or 2 of salt. Let this rise a few times before
you form it into loaves, bake it at a high temperature, and you have not
only crispy, brown crust, but great flavor as well.
I've also learned that the more extra stuff you put into bread: sugar,
honey, butter, milk, oil, eggs, the lower the temperature needs to be to
bake these types of loaves. When I make challah, for example, or brioche,
or panettone, I bake the loaves at 350F until they're done. If I put the
temperature up much more than that, they brown too quickly because of the
extra sugar. Also, the crusts don't get very crispy because of the extra
fat they contain. And certainly not after they've been inside a plastic
bag. One more suggestion Frank: have a professional calibrate your oven.
Good Luck! Happy Baking!
Terry